Sometimes the physical power buttons on Android phones and iPhones stop working. The longer you use a device, the greater the chance that moving parts will break. Can you reboot a phone without the power button? There are options.
How to Restart an Android Phone Without the Power Button
Android devices have a few different methods of rebooting a phone without a functional physical power button. We’ll start with the easiest and work your way down.
Quick Settings
By far the easiest way to reboot an Android device without a power button is the Quick Settings panel. This menu has the switches for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Airplane mode, and many other customizable tiles.
Swipe down once or twice, depending on your device, and tap the power icon.
Select “Restart” from the menu.
That’s all!
RELATED: Customize and rearrange the Android Quick Settings dropdown
Plug it in
The next method is a bit more hit or miss. Some devices start up when you plug them into a power source. This doesn’t always work, but there are some devices that will eventually turn on if you leave them plugged in.
If the device is already on and you just want to wake up the screen, this method should work too. Almost all Android devices will wake the screen when connected to power. From there, you can use the Quick Settings method above to reboot.
ADB
The most involved method to reboot a phone without the power button is ADB – Android Debug Bridge. However, this only works if the device is already turned on.
The first thing to do is follow our guide to installing and setting up ADB on your PC. After you’ve done that, we can enter a command to reboot your phone or tablet.
In the command prompt window, run the following command: adb reboot
The device turns off and restarts. You are done!
RELATED: How to install and use ADB, the Android Debug Bridge utility
How to Restart an iPhone Without the Power Button
There are two main methods to reboot an iPhone depending on whether it is turned on or off.
Supportive touch
Apple has many accessibility features on the iPhone. “Assistive Touch” puts a virtual button on the screen that can be customized to do many different things. We’ll use it to create a shortcut to reboot your phone.
First, open the “Settings” on your iPhone.
Then go to the ‘Accessibility’ settings and select ‘Touch’.
Go to “Assistive Touch” and enable it at the top of the screen.
You will see a floating button appear on the screen. Now we can decide how you want the reboot shortcut to work. You can add it to the shortcut menu by selecting ‘Customize main menu’.
Select one of the shortcuts and replace it with “Restart”.
If you want even easier access to the Restart shortcut, you can choose it as a single tap, double tap, or long press of the floating button.
To use it, just tap the floating button and select “Restart” or use the other custom action you created.
The iPhone shuts down and restarts!
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Plug it in
You’re not out of luck if the iPhone is already turned off. iPhones start up automatically when connected to power – once they have enough power.
So all you need to do is plug it in or place it on a wireless charger and wait for the iPhone to turn on. It’s that simple.
RELATED: How to fix an iPhone that won’t turn on
Fortunately, if the power button isn’t working on your Android device or iPhone, you have some options. Sometimes you can’t do anything, but in some cases you’re not unlucky. Either way, you’ll eventually have to fix it.
RELATED: Can you turn on an Android phone without the power button?